Ok, so first let me just acknowledge how grade-ten-first-day-of-school-english-class-writing-exercise-esque my title is. Now that that's been addressed, I was extremely fortunate to have some super awesome experiences over the course of this summer. I was thinking about the summer as a whole, and I began to realize that I learned some super valuable lessons.
I spent my summer touring the country/playing music and working at Camp Monahan, where another counselor and I guided groups of ten teenagers on hiking and canoeing trips in the Quappelle valley. These were some of the lessons I learned:
1) Good organization skills can make or break you:
Cramming your summer full of awesome and fun activities sounds fun and carefree. However, good organization skills can prove super handy when you have a gazillion things on the go. The months prior to my first tour this summer were full of album recording, university club commitments, booking a month-and-a-half long tour, playing shows around the city, in addition to working a full time government job. Even once I was on tour and camp I was still booking tour dates, dealing with university deadlines, playing shows and worrying about my campers.
Life can be overwhelming at times. Good organization was the only way which I could have even imagined to accomplish everything with my sanity semi-intact.
2) A little preparation can go a long way:
Putting in an appropriate amount of prep-work was especially important as we were preparing for our hiking/canoeing excursions. We were responsible for preparing food orders, strategically packing coolers/backpacks/canoes, and ensuring the campers were safe and happy. Spending a few moments anticipating challenges and situations that may arise could end up saving you exponentially more time and energy later on.
Good preparation is also crucial when booking shows as a musician, where a few hours of facebooking/emailing/phone calls can be the difference between having a terrible/poorly attended show and putting on a well promoted and profitable gig.
3) When you find yourself in a foreign place, take some time to immerse yourself in their culture:
You don't have to leave Canada to gain a different perspective than what you know at home. In a country as vast and diverse as Canada, you need only travel a few blocks or a quick drive down the highway to experience a completely different culture. The problem is that we get so caught up in everyday tasks, timelines, and worries that it is easy to overlook important little details that can be very educational if you're paying attention.
For example, when traveling from city to city I made an effort to pay attention to the social services and local flairs that each city would have. I would make an effort to use their public transit, ask about the health of the music scene, check to see if there were compost and recycling bins at houses we would stay at, and ask locals questions at shows about what they liked and didn't like about living in their communities.
By paying attention and asking about even the little things, you start to paint a picture of how insanely awesome and diverse our world is, as well as areas in your own community that need improvements. I know personally, that I also found myself with a ton of new ideas and perspectives to bring back to my hometown. These cultural perspectives are important for the growth and diffusion of new ideas, and are always around you if you take the time to notice them.
4) My family is probably the most important part of my life, friends a close second:
Being away from home so much (I think I calculated I slept in my bed a total of eleven times between May 7th and Aug 22nd) it is easy to lose sight of how important family is to you. Especially when you're on the road playing show after show in unfamiliar towns and eating terrible gas station food (chips, peanuts, McDonalds, etc). I found myself becoming moody and increasingly irritable as the days passed. The one thing that I knew I could count on was a comforting phone call to my parents, or a text conversation with a friend.
Building up a positive support group around you is important, especially when you find yourself at your lowest of lows. However, the relationship between you and your family/friends isn't stricly a 'take' relationship. It's important to give back when you can. You have to put in an effort to help them and invest an adequate amount of time into them, as they have with you. At times it was extremely difficult, but I still made an effort to try. These are the people that will be with you through the thick and the thin. They are worth making an effort for.
5) There's no place like home:
Out of all the places I've been this summer, Saskatchewan is still my favorite in the world (a close second to Newfoundland, by's). You don't realize how much you love a place until you leave. After spending a week in Jasper this summer (which was very beautiful), there was still something comforting and beautiful about driving back to camp in the Qu'appelle valley. Nothing can beat eating a hot plate of mom's pasta or taking an early autumn drive to the farm at harvest time.
Welp, that's all for now. I'm sure I'll be blogging more now that summer has died down!
nick.
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